The Internet has spawned many new communications mediums that continue to become increasingly popular and wide spread. The ever-growing popularity of mobile devices such as internet-capable smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and the like have contributed to this continued popularity. These new communication mediums include but are not limited to electronic mail (email), voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP), instant messaging (IM) and text messaging over a network of two or more computers or network connectable, processor-based devices. For example, email allows electronic communication of a text message alone or in combination with graphics and optional attachments. Text or instant messaging is a simpler communication mechanism for transmitting short text messages. These electronic communication mediums are popular as they provide inexpensive, easy, point-to-point communication that is less intrusive than a traditional phone call. There is an abundance of other benefits, for example, email easily enables one-to-many communication, there is no need to synchronize participants and the content can be planned easier, among other things. Unfortunately, these mediums have numerous main adversaries that threaten the convenience of and confidence in their use, namely spam, phishing techniques, and viruses.
The problem of spam and phishing is rampant in the email and web world which has led to several insufficient solutions. In light of such, a variety of systems and techniques have been developed and employed to combat spam, phishing techniques, and malicious code related to electronic communication media. With the advent of voice enabled web and unified communications, more and more organizations are employing voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and instant messaging federation. Within such environments, problems associated with email will start manifesting toward the real time communication sector in a similar form such as spam called generated by applications known as “bots,” real time applications, automated programs, or users in public Internet clouds starting a phishing attack to retrieve sensitive information from unsuspecting users. Thus, conventional techniques (e.g., content-based filters, IP address-based filters, etc.) are becoming ineffective within the unified communication realm and/or real time communication sector in recognizing and blocking disguised spam, phishing attacks, bots, automated programs, real time applications and the like in relation to electronic communications. The integrity of enterprises and data communications is imperative to success in which improvements are necessary to ensure security and/or protective techniques are less vulnerable, stronger, and more difficult to penetrate.